Within a couple of weeks or so, the second volume in the Histories series will be released by the Church Historian’s Press. This promises to be an interesting volume, and the kickoff is another event that we’ll hopefully liveblog here. In any case, watch for it, coming up soon.

Histories volume 1 contained a number of fascinating bits, perhaps most interesting to me was the Howard Coray document. His own claims about writing for Joseph Smith have been somewhat puzzling, since the documentary evidence was lacking. Histories 1 solved the mystery. Who knows what might be coming now? We will soon find out.

The Church History Library website has a fine new feature on the beginnings of the sister missionary movement. Get on over there and have a look. When our understanding of foundational events fades, ignorances flows in. And you know what Dickens said about that.

James E. Talmage, a name that lives in legend among LDS missionaries for the last 60 years, was British born and converted to Mormonism in 1873. Talmage was a talented scholar from childhood. After emigrating to the US he ended up finishing four years at Lehigh in one year and went on to Johns Hopkins in 1883. Ph.D. at Illinois Weslayan even though he wasn’t in residence. At home in Provo, he was a city councilman and then judge. (Some of his court cases are a crackup.)Read more of this post

I’ve been using this for some time to help organize some of my research and just thought I’d place an ad for them. I have a friend who works on this aspect of CHL stuff and the whole bunch are doing a great job. It’s plain fantastic to be able to thumb through things like this. Moreover, there is more to come. Hopefully, detailed registers on big collections, etc. Very useful indeed.